Rarely will objectivity be met without a slant. Embracing that slant, highlighting it, sometimes exploiting it, here are the stories that dare to address certain realities without fear of exposing the flaws.

Monday, February 26, 2007

all used up

photo by Cat

So what do you make of roses haphazardly thrown into the kitchen sink, inches away from a blender-esque doom at the hands of the garbage disposal?

Either love went horribly awry, or Valentine's Day - and all it's perishable remnants - is over.

Not long ago, I opened a small porcelin hand-painted box that I had given my grandmother as a birthday gift some decade or so back. Inside were a few dried rose petals from the corsage she wore to my wedding. What a lovely sentiment, but the reality wasn't nearly as attractive.

The roses in question had been a pale pink, and the petals were a horrible yellowed brown color, and to crisp to salvage once removed from the box. Just as well, since they were on their way back to dust anyway... and I have enough dust lying around without the help of old rose petals.

The sentiment stayed with me, much like the box of papers dating back to my kindergarten days, with "I love you MeMaw" scribbled in barely legible red crayon on a pink heart, or a crude and colorful drawing of a stick house with three stick figures in random sizes outside in the yard next to the bubble-leafed tree.

I stared at that dumb box for almost an hour contemplating whether or not to keep it and it's contents, much the same way I cried when the dried rose petals crumbled in my hand.

Who she was and how much she loved me is reflected in the physical existence of such memorabilia, even if it completely useless to me now. That is my history, and her legacy.